The present disclosure relates to methods of fabricating a localized semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) on a localized thick buried oxide (BOX) on a bulk semiconductor substrate for semiconductor photonic's device components, such as, for example, waveguides and modulators, integrated with bulk device technologies.
Photonic devices are useful as communication devices. Stand-alone photonic devices require an interface with optical fibers. A circuit including multiple photonic devices not only becomes bulky in size, but also economically disadvantageous. In order to fully utilize the functionalities of photonic devices, therefore, it is necessary to integrate photonic devices with other photonic devices and other types of devices such as semiconductor devices.
Integration of photonic devices with semiconductor devices such as complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices and/or bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) devices can provide on-chip and chip-to-chip optical interconnections. However, photonic devices and semiconductor devices can require different types of substrates. While many CMOS devices and BiCMOS devices require a bulk semiconductor substrate, many photonic devices require a semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) substrate, which is more expensive than bulk substrates. Thus, there is a need to enable formation of such photonic devices and CMOS/BiCMOS devices on a same substrate in an economical manner.